“A special alert…. if you are traveling by bus or train and you see a girl with flower, threads, chain or any such shiny items in her hand, please move away quickly. That shiny item might be a Rakhi. A little carelessness on your behalf might be enough to make you her brother. Advisory for all males”

😉

For those of you who don’t know what rakhi is here’s a summary: “Rakhi, commonly called “Raksha Bandhan” is one of the most popular festivals of India. The Rakhi festival is a celebration of the pure and sacred bond between brothers and sisters. ‘Raksha Bandhan’ or ‘Rakhi’ is a very special day for brothers and sisters, when the sister celebrates her emotional bonding by tying a holy thread around the wrist of her brother. This thread, which symbolizes love and care, is called the ‘Rakhi’. “Rakhi” means the bond of protection. The Raksha Bandhan festival also connotes a broad significance that the strong must protect the weak from all the evils and dangers. ” (Source: Rakhifestival.com)

July 23, 2007

This weekend was a particularly fun weekend. Surabhi was in town for a couple of days so I got the enjoy her company with my parents. It was nice to be together as a family after such a long time. It had been a while since we all got together and just relaxed. We spent most of the weekend just talking.

Today was mom’s birthday but since Surabhi was leaving on the 22nd we decided to celebrate it on the 21st with a dinner at the Golf course. We decided to have Chinese food I ordered some spicy garlic noodles and something Manchurian and I really liked it. I like the Indian version of the Chinese food as they put a lot of spices and stuff in it but I don’t like the way they make Chinese food in the US ’cause it tastes like they just boil a bunch of vegetables together and serve it. (Yuck…)

Then on Sunday we had a little surprise birthday ‘party’ for mom. We got cake and candles and decorated it in my room without telling mom, when we were ready papa called her into the room and we surprised her. It was great.

I also bought the latest harry potter for Surabhi. Its an expensive book (Probably because it is a hardcover book). But you have to see the hype over here. This is the first time I have seen so much excitement over a book in India.

That brings me to another topic, the Times of India and Aaj Tak network have no clue on how to promote books. My mom told me that she was watching the news to hear more about the presidential election that were going on and right in the middle of it there was a banner floating at the bottom of the screen giving away a major plot point. The worse part was that this was before the book was officially released. They found out about it by reading the leaked version of the book and decided to share it.

Even Times of India did the same thing, they had this photo of two kids posing next to a Harry Potter cutout and the caption read “In the epilogue of the book …..” (They gave away the ending but I am not ’cause I don’t want to spoil it for fans)

I mean come on, don’t you have any common sense? This is a book that people have been waiting for ages for. Would they do the same for a mystery movie that came out? No right? (At least I hope so) so why are they spoiling the ending of a good book? Anyways, I still haven’t read the book yet.

July 17, 2007

Its official, the latest Harry Potter book “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” is now out on the web on most torrent sites. Someone took a camera and took photos of every page of the book and posted it online. Now, I have seen copies of the book online but haven’t read it yet. Why not? ’cause I am not a HP fan. While I will probably read the book, I will first have to read the previous 6 books so that I can figure out whats going on. Its been ages since I read the last one and I have forgotten most of the story.

I have the last page as an image file that a friend emailed to me. Now the question in front of me is… Do I be really evil and post the last page of the book here? The second question is; will I survive if I do that? (’cause if no one else does it, Surabhi will kill me)

If you want a copy of the last page, feel free to leave a message in the comments. Depending on my mood and how evil I feel I just might mail it to you if you ask(Just the last page. Not the book). Though I suggest that you buy the book if you are a fan. I am not so I am not buying the book.

July 16, 2007

I have been watching this TV series from 1985 called “Amazing Stories” and I love it. This great series was created and directed by Steven Spielberg and I must say that it shows in the stories.

Each episode is only 25 mins long and they cover completely unique stories. For example the first episode is called the “Ghost Train” and is about a train which derailed 60 years ago and one of its passengers who was waiting to get on it survived. The train appears every year at the time it had crashed waiting for its missing passenger.

My favorite so far is the episode called “Mummy, Daddy” in which an actor who is playing the role of an Egyptian mummy in the swamp gets a call letting him know that his wife went into early labor so he rushes off in his mummy costume without taking it off. Now the locals think he is a real mummy so try to kill him. Pretty funny story.

I have watched 4 episodes out of 24 from the first season so far and I love it. Most of the stories are funny though some people might find a couple of them scary.

July 15, 2007

I went and watched Harry Potter yesterday. It was an ok movie but I am glad that I watched in India where I paid Rs 120 (< $3) for it instead of watching it in the US where I would have paid ~ $10 for it.
The main reason I didn't like the movie is that I am not a harry potter fan and the movie was too slow moving for me. 'cause I am not a Lord of the Rings fan either but I liked the movies.
Just going to share some of my thoughts on the movie so if you haven't seen it yet stop reading because the remainder of the post might contain spoilers.
The main thing that i found weird was that they went and created this army and Harry spent a lot of time training them to fight. But when they finally went to fight only the five of them went. Why? Couldn't they wait a few more mins and gather everyone, after all most of them were there in the office...
Anyways, I like the Die Hard 4.0 much better than this one. So far the only movie that I really liked this summer were, Fantastic 4 2 and Die Hard 4.0.
This is all for now. Will post more later.
- Suramya

July 6, 2007

Hey,
We have a directory on the server thats password protected and we needed to give access to a subdirectory of that folder to everyone (Without having them enter a password). Turns out it is possible to do so using .htaccess

Create a .htaccess file in the subfolder that you want to give full access to with the following content:

AuthType none
Satisfy any

Save and exit. This overrides the password protection of the parent folder and gives anonymous access to the folder.